[OPEN] I won't shiver in the cold

[photophobic]

WHO: Kylo 'too many issues and not enough tissues' Ren and... YOU?
WHERE: Various locations around De Chima
WHEN: Following the Porter's restoration
WHAT: An emotionally stunted manchild with superpowers moping around a lot
WARNINGS: It's Kylo Ren. I'll update if he does anything particularly awful.



[OPEN TO CUSTOMERS (AND STAFF) OF POUR DECISIONS]

Neither Kylo Ren or Ben Solo had been much for drink before arriving here in this strange reality- there had always been far too much going on to allow time for this kind of indulgence- but this was far from the first time Ren had found his feet carrying him towards the bar staffed by his housemate and ally.

It felt like a safe place to go when he needed distraction- and in the aftermath of the last two weeks, Ren needed plenty of distraction.
 

A little more accustomed to the process of buying and consuming drinks here now, he approached the bar, glancing around to check for familiar faces. It wasn't that he particularly wanted (or didn't want) company- it was more that he needed very much to get out of the endless loops his thoughts were prone to follow when left to their own devices.

[OPEN TO RESIDENTS AND VISITORS TO DE CHIMA GOVERNMENT HOUSING]

He'd been banned from another gym this week- and so, because he didn't feel like going through the hassle of finding another establishment to patronise (and eventually vandalise) Kylo Ren had taken up training in the woods surrounding the government housing to which he had never actually been officially assigned.

 

Training, when you were Kylo Ren, involved a lot of physical exercise- he was far from reliant on his lightsaber when it came to battle, and it was important to him to remain in peak physical condition. Particularly now, in the aftermath of the Porter's reminder of just how vulnerable he had been on arrival.
 

Visitors and residents of De Chima's residences could often catch sight or sound of him- an arc of red crackling light glimpsed between the trees, a sharp, violent cry as he loosed himself into  the rage and fury of the Dark Side, or the more mundane but still mildly unsettling sight of the directionless force user putting himself through the paces of a more routine (if extremely demanding) workout.

He usually had the good grace to keep his shirt on.

Usually.

[FOLLOWING THIS TEXT CONVERSATION; CLOSED TO RESIDENTS AND VISITORS TO DE CHIMA 001]

He had known it was foolish to engage with Leia, and the memory of his foolhardy attempt to help her through her struggles with the Force had weighed heavily on his mind ever since- but the text messages she had sent him that seemed to describe a desire for reconciliation had broken him, utterly.

So he had taken off blindly into the darkness of the early evening, only really regaining control of himself once he had staggered far enough into the woods to consider the quiet solitude privacy. His chest heaved, his heart pounded, and it wasn't rage that he felt when he thought about his mother's question, the touch of her hand and the sudden agony of her draining the life from his body- it was grief.
Everything she did that demonstrated love only served to remind him of everything he had lost-- everything he had destroyed and yet found whole again here. It made a mockery of him.
No, he hadn't been prepared to confront her. He feared he might never be.

There was only one place he felt he could go to find himself again.

And so, an hour or so later, a slightly dissheveled and underdressed Kylo Ren approached the home of the one member of his family he felt had seen enough of his true nature to make the informed decision to reject him and still welcomed him with open arms-- his grandfather. It was an easy enough matter to let himself in when no-one answered the door, and he felt certain Anakin wouldn't mind.

A few minutes later, he began to regret leaving his comm device behind on the couch at home- he had never been particularly good at waiting.

[WILDCARD: Hit me!]
Feel free to hit me up on discord (cryloren#2195) or plurk (starktech) for all your edgelord plotting needs!

Comments

[photophobic]

"Not here," Ren replies, a little bitterness slipping into his voice. He adores his Grandfather- idolises him, but it hasn't been an easy adjustment, finding him still so tied to the Light, here. So much of what he has done was to serve the legacy of Darth Vader, and he knows that far from make his Grandfather proud, his deeds trouble Anakin.

If he is honest, they have begun to trouble him, too.

"He knows the Dark Side. But he seeks to reject it."

[dun_moch]

Dooku turns away from the fire, frowning deeply. He came here to take the measure of Skywalker's descendant, but gaining this troubling news about his true leanings is an unexpected side benefit. The Count has more than enough troubles to contend with at this moment without worrying about whether Skywalker will turn back from the Dark.

"I knew him as a Jedi, during the Clone Wars," he says, looking at Kylo Ren, noting the clear signs of ancestry in the boy's hair, his expression, his manner. "The Force was strong with him then, but he has become so much more powerful now that he commands the Dark Side. To reject such strength would be a grave error."

One that Ren would be wise not to make for himself.

[photophobic]

"It's impossible to deny the Dark Side," Ren retorts, made mildly irritable by the mere idea. He did spend the vast majority of his formative years desperately trying to hide that aspect of himself and causing nothing but pain in the attempt after all. "I'm sure he knows it. But he has no... love for it. It doesn't sit comfortably."

He flexes his fingers, his defiant gaze settling back on the Count's face.

"Do all Sith... struggle?"

[dun_moch]

The Count lifts a hand to stroke his beard for a moment, frowning thoughtfully as he watches Ren's eyes move. "Of course," he says. "All beings struggle. Conflict is the nature of the universe. It exposes the weak and elevates the strong. The Sith embrace this reality, and are more powerful for it."

He lowers his hand, folds his fingers behind his back, takes a few slow, mindful paces to the side, beginning to circle Kylo.

"I admit that I struggled myself, during the early stages of my learning. I had been a Jedi for a very long time- longer than you have been alive, in fact. Their poison was deeply rooted in me. Having it removed was... uncomfortable, at times. Vader is still new to the Dark Side. His discomfort is to be expected."

[photophobic]

He nods, slowly. Thoughtfully. Being circled like this would probably unnerve most people, but Kylo was used to it to the point of hardly finding it strange at all.

"So it isn't the goal of a Sith to... purge the Light completely? Is such a thing even possible?"

[dun_moch]

Dooku is behind Kylo now, speaking from the shadow cast by the light of the fireplace. It is as though his voice is coming from the room itself, or within Kylo's own mind.

"The Dark must ultimately destroy the Light, as strength must eliminate weakness. Only then will the conflict finally end, and peace and stability reign- in our own minds, as in the Galaxy. But it requires overwhelming power to make such a thing possible. Only the strongest and most remarkable individuals are capable of reaching that stage."

As within, so without. This is the truth that Lord Sidious had imparted to Dooku: that just as the Galaxy required an immensely powerful Empire to create peace and order, so did its leaders require total commitment to the way of the Sith to stamp out indecision and weakness within themselves.

[photophobic]

"And you?" he asks, turning to face the Count, his gaze oddly intense as he focuses on his eyes. "Do you hear it, still? The call to the Light."

Not, quite pointedly, do you give in.

[dun_moch]

The Count's eyes don't waver when Kylo turns, but he is uncharacteristically silent for a moment before he responds. Not only was he not expecting the boy to question him so boldly, but he is momentarily torn between two imperatives: the desire to connect more to this young, strong power, and the need to avoid showing weakness.

For a moment he almost chooses the first. He almost tells Kylo the truth: that even now, after thirteen years of fealty to the darkness, there is something unsteady and contemptible within his heart, something that sometimes twists and roils when there should only be cold resolve. That there are moments when he feels old and hollow and used-up, weighed down by an invisible weight of wet blood and amassed rubble, when he remembers that he has betrayed everyone and everything for the empty promises of a cackling horror in a hood. That after learning the total waste of those thirteen years, of being betrayed and cast aside like a worn-out puppet, of finding out it was all for nothing, that hateful doubting weakness is waking up again.

Then he masters himself, and does the wise thing any intelligent Sith Lord would do, and lies.

"Not any more," he says with cool confidence. "I have had a long time to go down the dark path... and I have gone very far indeed. I left the Light behind long ago. It no longer holds any sway over me."

[photophobic]

Kylo smiles slightly- it isn't kind, or soft, and it doesn't really fulfil any of the criteria necessary for a smile beyond being a slight curve to his lips. But it isn't cruelty in the steady intensity of his eyes, either. Curiosity, perhaps.

"That isn't what I asked," he says.

A long, long walk down the dark path indeed, looking only at the shadow cast by the Light behind.

"You hear it still, then. But you have learned not to be drawn by the call."

[dun_moch]

Dooku doesn't flinch at Kylo's unexpected perception, but he looks like he would like very much to. His lips twitch downward, not quite frowning as he masters his reaction and his composure. Who is this boy?

"It is a matter of discipline," he says, softer now, a voice for giving secrets, not commands. "Of knowing how to leave behind useless things."

He pauses, then tries to turn things back to how he pictured this exchange going. "Would you like to know more, Kylo Ren? I can give you the knowledge you desire. And with it, the power."

[photophobic]

There had been a time when Kylo Ren would have leapt at the opportunity with an eagerness verging on unseemly- and it isn't as if the offer has no merit. Accepting training from the Sith would give him a level of insight into both paths that would never have been open to him otherwise.

But his experience with Snoke has soured him. Here, beyond the Supreme Leader's reaches, he has been given a new perspective- and his father's words echo in his ears.
  He's using you for your power.
The step closer. The desperation, the grief.
  When he gets what he wants, he'll crush you.

The familiar pain twists in his chest. He will not look, he will not see his father's eyes, he will not feel the love he hungered after for so long in that last, useless touch. Not here. Not now. Not when he is certain the cool, solid mind he pushed up against earlier can sense his weakness. He pushes it down. Drowns it.

"Can you?" he asks, his voice much tighter, now. "At what price?"

[dun_moch]

A wise question. Dooku would have asked it himself, in Ren's position. Looking back, he wishes he had asked more such question before accepting Sidious' own offer of knowledge and power. The price had been far, far greater than advertised.

But Dooku is telling the truth (for now) when he says to Kylo:

"An alliance. A commitment that you will not use this power against me or my interests, and that you will stand by me if I am threatened." The Count smiles thinly. "My relationship with your family has always been... strained, let us say. I would prefer a more stable arrangement in this new world, and you are clearly one of the most powerful of the Skywalkers."

[photophobic]

Ah. So the Count wants him as an insurance policy. A Skywalker in his pocket.

"I am," he agrees steadily. Here, at least, he has little doubt that he could cut Luke down without much difficulty. Anakin-- he isn't certain. He can't imagine a scenario where he would attempt it.
He considers. Remembers that cold facade of Dooku's mind. Covets it.

"A true Sith apprentice would simply accept your terms and betray you later once it suited them, wouldn't they? But I am no Sith. I could certainly agree not to use what I learned against you- I have no interest in rekindling old wars. Distant conflicts. But it would take more than I believe you can offer for me to swear to side with you against my family."

[dun_moch]

"I understand," the Count says smoothly. "But it will hopefully be unnecessary for you to ever make that choice. In fact, you and I reaching and understanding would make conflict with your family less likely. I am envisioning more of an alliance against those forces that would control and destroy all imPorts... including the ones you care for."

The OTO. The Soviets. Anti-imPort criminals. And eventually, the government and Lachesis themselves.

[photophobic]

"Making an agreement to side with each other against a threat facing us both is easy enough," Kylo says, a little cautiously now. Dooku's recovered ease and smooth, effortless command of diplomatic language is unsettling- more than he would care to admit.

"It would be foolish not to."

[dun_moch]

"Foolishness is deplorably common in the universe, I'm afraid," Dooku says dryly. He steps in front of the fire again, and stands before Kylo as a silhouette wreathed in flame.

"I will not ask you to side against your family, only to help keep the peace," he insists again, a note of earnestness in his voice. "I will not be able to teach you if your grandmother destroys me, after all."

Not that he's particularly concerned about Padme's threat to him in this world, or anything.